Adding a new URL to your course

You can add link to a website or online file by choosing URL from the "Add a resource" drop down menu in your course.

The "Adding a new URL" screen will ask for a link name and a description (which may be required or optional according to the admin settings)

In the "Content" box you type or paste a copied external weblink. The "Choose a link" button takes them to the file picker where they can choose URLs from online areas such as youtube, Box.net, Picasa, Merlot etc, depending on what admin has allowed.

Course administration settings

Display options

Automatic - Make the best guess at what should happen (probably what is wanted 99% of the time).

Embed - Show the Moodle page with heading, blocks and footer. Show the title/description of the item and display the file directly in the page as well

Open - No Moodle heading, blocks, footer or description - just show the file in the web browser (e.g. shows image, PDF, flash animation, taking up the whole browser window)

In pop-up - Same as 'Open', but opens a new browser window to show this file (without the Moodle heading, blocks, etc) - this browser window also does not have all the menus and address bar in it.

There are additional options if you enable them via Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > URL:

Advanced Settings

Parameters

The parameters section allows you to pass internal information as part of the URL.

This is useful if the URL is actually an interactive web page that takes parameters, and you want to pass something like the name of the current user, for example.

Other settings

New featurein Moodle 2.2!
There is also an option to display the URL description on the course page below the link to the URL. See the screencast Moodle 2.2 - Show descriptions for a demonstration by developer Sam Marshall.

URL module capabilities

Site administration settings

The URL module has additional settings which may be changed by an administrator in Settings > Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > URL.

Frame height

Here you can specify the height of the top frame (containing the navigation) if you choose the "in frame" display option. Note:If your theme has a large header then the height should be increased to prevent horizontal and vertical scrollbars.

Require activity description

This setting allows you to turn off the requirement for users to type something into the description box.

Password

Here you can add a password that will connect your users to a secure site. See this forum post for more details.

Include role names in parameters

Available display options

This setting allows you to add different ways the resource may be displayed on the course page. There are a number of defaults but you can add or change them here. Other display options are;

In frame - show the Moodle heading and the file description, with the file displayed in a resizable area below

New window - very much like 'in pop-up', but the new window is a full browser window, with menus and address bar, etc.

Default values for activity settings

Here you can set the defaults for this resource. You can also choose which setting(s) to class as "Advanced". These settings will only then appear if the user clicks "Show advanced" in the settings.